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Financial Aid Status

A student is assigned a financial aid status for each financial aid year. Status can change from one financial aid year to another. Multiple financial aid years may be applied to each academic year. Typically, a Financial Aid Status record will be automatically created during the ISIR import process. It is possible, however, to manually add a Financial Status record if ISIR records are not being imported into CAMS.

Note: Fully completing the Financial Aid Status form is crucial to Automated Options such as Priority Packaging, Auto Package, Automated Pell Processing, or Load Award Sequences because CAMS uses many factors including Direct Cost Type, Packaged for Load amount, Primary EFC, and total COA to determine which awards the student is eligible to receive, and how they will be awarded or packaged.

To assign financial aid status:

  1. From CAMS Enterprise Home page, click Financial Aid >Maintenance to open the Status list.
  2. Select the appropriate Academic Year from the drop-down list. Statuses for each financial aid year display. If no Financial Aid has yet been awarded to this particular student, the Academic Year default “All” is the only possible choice.
  3. Right-click to add a new status, or double left-click to open an existing status. The Financial Aid Status Detail form appears.
  4. The Academic Year and Financial Aid Year display, unless "All" was selected. In this case, you will need to select the appropriate Academic Year and Financial Aid Year from the drop-down list. Select the Package Status from the drop-down list.
  5. The Financial Aid Year can be changed for existing records if no awards have been added. The Financial Aid Year selected will set the Alt Primary ## Months field on the ISIR tab as is set in Yearly Setup.
  6. Select the Direct Cost Type. The budgeted Cost of Attendance (COA) for this direct cost type appears in the Cost of Attendance data grid. Click the View/Hide Costs to display the grid, and to modify or add COA values to the list. The total COA is calculated from the itemized list and displays in the Total field.

Note: Direct Cost Type must be populated in order to apply awards during the Priority Packaging Process and calculate PELL amounts during any automated PELL process.

  1. Enter the Primary EFC (Expected Family Contribution). Primary EFC must be populated in order to apply Priority Packages or automated Pell processing. This is used only for calculation of Pell.

Note: Primary EFC must be populated in order to apply automated Pell processing.

  1. The Secondary EFC is used to track additional student income not included in the Primary or Alt Primary EFC amounts. This is for reference only and is not used in packaging calculations.
  2. Enter the Alt Primary EFC which is used to calculate need (COA minus Alt Primary EFC).

Note: Alt Primary EFC is required for Priority Package processing and is defined as an EFC amount for a Financial Aid Year where the length is NOT 9 months.

  1. If necessary, change the default (100%) % for Primary EFC for Remaining Need field which allows you to enter a percentage of the student's primary EFC contribution for remaining need calculations, so that remaining need can be adjusted based on this amount. For example, if a student has a total cost of attendance for $5000, and the primary EFC contribution = $1000, remaining need would be $4000 before any awards were added. If the % for Primary EFC for Remaining Need field is populated with 50%, then the remaining need prior to adding awards would equal $4500.
  2. The Dependent (or Independent) financial status indicates whether students are financially dependent upon their parents, or if they are financially self-supporting. Other values include Dependent Rej (Dependent rejected), Independent Rej (Independent rejected), and Unknown.
  3. Select Yes or No to indicate whether the Auto Zero EFC is effective.
  4. Click Lock Packaging if awards have been packaged and should not be re-packaged during the Priority Packaging Process.
  5. Select Yes or No to indicate whether the student has all Documents Complete. This can later be used as criteria for selecting awards to transfer to Billing.
  6. Select Yes or No to indicate whether the student has a previous Prev Bachelor’s Degree.
  7. Select Yes or No to indicate whether the student has enrolled in a graduate or professional degree program (Enrolled Grad/Prof).
  8. If using Priority Packaging, the Initial Package Date is automatically populated. If not, select the date from the calendar.
  9. If using Priority Packaging, the Last Package Date (most recent) is automatically populated, or select the date from the calendar.
  10. Enter the FISAP (Fiscal Operations Report and Application to Participate) Total Income dollar amount.
  11. Select the appropriate Packaged for Load amount, such as Full-Time, Part-Time, etc. Packaged for Load amount must be populated in order to apply Priority Packages, automated Pell processing, and to load award sequences.

Note: During COD Export, if a student does not have a Registration Status Student Load value for one of the terms in the Financial Aid Year, COD Export will look to the Student's Packaged for Load value on the Financial Aid Maintenance Status for the COD Enrollment Status value. For example, if the Financial Aid Year contains Fall of 2014 and Spring of 2015 and students are only registered for Fall, Spring COD Enrollment Status will be pulled from this value.

  1. The Verification Code (Y=Yes or N=No) is populated via the ISIR record upon import. This value identifies whether a student was selected for verification.
  2. Select the appropriate Verification Status from the following list: Selected but not verified, Verified, or Without Documentation.
  3. If the Verification Code requires a resolution, and has been resolved, click the Resolved checkbox.
  4. Key verification resolution notes into the Note field.
  5. The Verification Tracking Flag value is populated via the ISIR record upon import. This value identifies the applicable verification group for a record.
  6. The Pell Lifetime Limit value is populated via the ISIR record upon import. This value indicates the status of the student’s Pell Lifetime Limit.
  7. Click View/Hide COD Extras to view the ACG Eligibility Payment Reason, Rigorous Highschool Program Code, Student Default Overpay Code, and Borrower (Plus) Default Overpay Code which are imported during the ISIR Direct Import for all new Status records and for existing status records where the option Update Existing Status Records with ISIR Data has been selected during the ISIR import
  8. If the student is applying for a PLUS or Alternative Loan, typically the student is not the Borrower, although Plus borrowers may also be students. Contacts are used to define the non-student borrower (often this will be a parent). If the borrower is a non-student, COD integration requires that non-student borrower information is included in the COD Export file. COD requires the Borrower SSN number (Tax ID number in the Contact record) and the Birth Date (Birth Date field in the Contact record) and Country of Citizenship.
  9. To add a non-student borrower, click Page 2 to open the Borrower Information detail form. Use the Search icon located next to Default Borrower for Student to display a current list of contacts for the student. If the Borrower does not display, the Contact record must first be added through Admissions >Student >Change Student >More tab >Contact button. Otherwise, double-click to add the borrower to the record. The Borrower Per Award Type data grid must be populated with Award Type and Borrower for Student ONLY where the Borrower for an award is not the default borrower. This associates the borrower with the correct award for the COD Export file. Click Add to add the borrower information, or Cancel to exit without saving. Borrowers may be copied from one Financial Aid Year to the next. Use the Copy button to choose the financial aid year to which you wish to copy the borrower. Click Update to add the borrower to the financial aid status record or Cancel to exit without saving.

Before DL Plus awards can be exported to COD, one of the following conditions must exist:

COD Information

The COD section on the Status tab contains the student’s COD Entrance/Exit Counseling, Master Promissory Note, Credit/PLUS Application, Informed Borrowing, and Award Usage Limits information which are populated during the COD Import. Entrance Counseling and Master Promissory Note information must be completed before loans can be exported to COD. This area allows you to verify if this data has been completed by the student. Normally this data is populated by the COD import process, however if necessary, records can be added, deleted, or modified here.

To View Entrance/Exit Counseling, MPN, PLUS App Info, Informed Borrowing, or Award Usage Limits:

  1. From the CAMS Enterprise Home page, click Financial Aid >Maintenance.
  2. In the COD section of the Status tab, click View MPN, View Entrance Counseling, View Credit/PLUS App Info, Informed Borrowing, or Award Usage Limits to toggle between these grids.  Note that Informed Borrowing is read only and imported through COD Import.
  3. Double-click an entry in the grid to view detail of the imported data or right-click to manually add an entry.

Once the status has been assigned, it's now possible to select one of the automated processes CAMS offers for adding awards to a student's record. You cannot run an automated process for a student unless that student's Financial Aid status has already been defined.

Select the academic year and the financial aid year, then click the Automation button to access the Automation Option form.

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